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Cappies season kicks off with new connections

Annual high school theatre program links students, professionals

Don Horsburgh, musical director at the Citadel Theatre, takes charge of the music for the season-ending Cappies gala each year.

EDMONTON - Don Horsburgh still has a vivid memory of the time he got to play the trombone with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra while he was still just a teenager.

“You just never forget how that felt,” says Horsburgh, “and what it sounded like.”

It’s that pay-it-forward spirit that galvanized the Citadel Theatre’s musical director to become involved with the Cappies, a program aimed at enhancing the profile of the Edmonton area’s high school theatre scene. Horsburgh takes charge of the music for the season-ending awards gala every year, giving a handful of students the rare opportunity to play alongside professional musicians.

“These young people are just so energized and enthused,” says Horsburgh. “It’s thrilling to watch them, especially seeing their faces at the end of the show. They’re so over the moon. That’s what makes it worth it.”

Cappies program director Chris Standring would clone Horsburgh if she could. Reaching deeper into the city’s vibrant theatre and arts community is one of the program’s new initiatives, along with promoting high school theatre in general.

“We’re trying to set up more opportunities to connect students with professionals in the arts community in ways that mentor them,” says Standring, a former Edmonton Journal editor.

She says the goal is to build a bank of willing professionals — in music, voice, acting and theatre technology — who could be invited out to rehearsals by the schools and offer feedback and encouragement to students. Cappies participants represent the new generation not just of theatre talent, but writing talent, too. The top critics, chosen by their Cappies peers, spend a week at the Journal each July learning about journalism.

During the Cappies season, critics from Edmonton-area public and separate schools fan out to participating schools to review their productions. With Holy Trinity coming on board this year, there are now 24 schools involved, in Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park and Spruce Grove. Other than the participating school boards, the major partners in the program are the Journal and the Citadel Theatre.

This is the sixth year in Edmonton for the Cappies, which is based in Washington, D.C. There are only two other chapters in Canada, in Ottawa and Niagara, along with 11 others in the U.S.

There are 200 student critics involved this year, plus a thousand or so more who are involved in Cappies productions, onstage and behind the scenes. This year’s lineup kicks off Nov. 28 with Eastglen High School’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Among the season’s other offerings are The Wizard of Oz, The Miracle Worker, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Godspell and A Streetcar Named Desire.

“There’s a great mix of plays and musicals,” notes Standring.

The season culminates in the awards gala at the Citadel in June, where outstanding work is acknowledged in a variety of categories, and students perform excerpts from some of the nominated shows.

“We celebrate the winners, of course,” says Standring, “but really, the emphasis is on the experience of participating (in the Cappies) and the skills that are learned.”

Horsburgh, for one, can attest to the value of that experience, at least from a musical perspective.

“They’re amazingly talented,” he says. “There are some teachers out there who are doing fine work with these young people. They still sound a bit like high school students, but only because they don’t have the physical strength to make a good sound on the instrument for a long period of time. All that takes, though, is practice. They already have the ability.”

Read Cappies reviews in the Journal’s Arts & Life section on some Mondays starting in early December and at edmontonjournal.com/cappies.

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